Diamond micro-optics

Diamond has the widest optical transparency window (220 nm and above) and the highest thermal conductivity of all materials known. It is therefore attractive to fabricate diffractive or refractive optical elements in diamond for e.g. high-power laser applications. In this paper we describe the transfer of several micro-optical structures, originally made in resist, into diamond of optical quality. This paper describes for the first time how refractive microlenses and diffractive fan-out elements have been fabricated in diamond.